


message in a bottle

by shadowdance



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: F/M, Minor Spoilers, Pre-Game(s), coincides with fe3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 16:48:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11787312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowdance/pseuds/shadowdance
Summary: Tatiana shows Zeke how far the ocean will take her words.





	message in a bottle

**Author's Note:**

> i'm alive i swear  
> me and a friend were discussing zeke/tatiana and this...stemmed from that. it's super short but i still love them a lot
> 
> very minor fe3 spoilers regarding zeke/sirius/whatever his name is. he's called zeke throughout this fic for the continuity's sake though

* * *

 

Tatiana is writing. There is ink spilled on the table, stained on her skin, but her hands are steady when she writes. She looks concentrated when she’s writing, all serious—thin mouth, a crease between her eyebrows, her eyes tracing over the paper. Zeke sits in the corner and pretends he’s watching the birds fly across the sky and not the way the light falls on Tatiana’s hair. It is dead silent in the atrium and Zeke finds it very peaceful.

But then the silence is torn apart by Tatiana’s loud sigh, and she looks up and glances at Zeke. “Do you have a spare bottle?” she asks, and Zeke’s eyebrows shoot up to his forehead.

“What?”

“Spare bottle,” Tatiana repeats. She stands up from the desk, and her ink wobbles precariously, but she doesn’t notice. “I swear I had a bunch, but somebody probably thought it was trash…I bet there’s a half bottle of ale or something around here, let me look…”

She starts to scavenge the room, looking under tables and standing on tiptoes to peer at the tall windowsills. Zeke raises an eyebrow, but he moves to help her anyways. A beat later, Tatiana emerges from underneath a table, her hair mussed and dust clinging to her cheeks. She’s holding an empty glass bottle, though, and smiling triumphantly.

“Found one!”

“I see,” Zeke notes, watching as Tatiana hurries back to her desk. The paper she’s been writing on so eloquently is folded carefully, first in half, and then in quarters. “What are you doing?”

Tatiana doesn’t look up to him, trying to jam the paper into the bottle. “Just, you know…trying to fit this in the bottle…c’mon, get in there…”

Zeke strides over and takes the bottle from her hands, the paper jammed halfway through the top. He looks at it, and then pushes it down gently, the paper clinking to the bottom. Tatiana beams at him and takes the bottle back.

“Oh, thanks! I have to make a stop by the ocean, do you want to come with me?”

And that's how he ends up at the seashore, watching Tatiana head towards the water with the bottle cradled in her hands. She’s crouching at the tide, ignoring the way the water sinks into her robes, and placing the bottle in the water gingerly. Then she lets go and just stands there, smiling in a rather satisfactory way. Zeke kicks off his boots and goes to stand next to her in that freezing tide.

“So what _are_ you doing, Tatiana?”

She turns to face him. The tips of her hair are wet, but her smile is radiant. “It’s a message in the bottle,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You know the old stories, right?” When Zeke shakes his head, her eyes widen. “Oh! It’s an old thing, Sister Agnes used to tell me about it…sometimes sailors left messages in bottles in the ocean, hoping their loved ones would find them. I mean, the ocean is so big, you know? And it can take anything anywhere.”

“Ah,” Zeke says, for lack of better word. He tries not to think about where he came from, how the ocean swallowed him whole and dropped him here. He supposes that if he could end up in Rigel, then a tiny bottle could deliver a letter to someone. “Do you mind if I ask who you wrote to?”

Tatiana’s cheeks flush pink, and for a second he thinks she won’t respond. Which is fair, it’s a pretty personal question, and Zeke hasn't been able to tell her anything personal about himself.

But then she says, “My parents." The words sound so bitter from her mouth that Zeke jerks his head up in surprise, and Tatiana blushes deeper.

“I mean, I  _miss_ them," she explains clumsily. "Sort of. Not that much. It's complicated." She sighs frustratedly and twists her fingers through her hair—it's a nervous habit of hers, Zeke notices. “I wrote to them a lot when I was younger. Like, all the time, but I never got a response. So Sister Agnes suggested that I do this—put a message in the bottle. I do it every year, around this time, although I've never gotten a response.”

The bottle lashes back and forth with the tide, and ends up drifting back to shore. Tatiana frowns and bends down, sending the bottle back into the tide. It rolls around in the water for a moment, but goes out farther than it did last time.

Zeke watches this silently for a moment, and then he slips his hand into hers and squeezes tightly. “Sorry.”

Tatiana shakes her head. "It's okay. _I’m_ okay. I just wonder if it ever reaches them sometimes.”

The waves are getting higher and crashing around them; Zeke feels the water spray his face. Tatiana tucks wet strands of hair out of her eyes, and they both look at the bottle. It bobs its way past the rocks this time, spiraling around slowly with the water.

“You could try it, if you want,” Tatiana suggests. “Maybe it’ll help…” her voice trails off, but Zeke knows what she’s suggesting. His heart leaps for a moment, but then he wonders who he would write to. The people he knew have drowned in his brain, disappeared with his memories, and the only person he could even picture writing to now would be the girl standing next to him.

He squeezes her hand again. “Maybe one day,” he says gently.

Tatiana nods solemnly. “Okay,” she says, and then they just stand there, watching the bottle drift away from the shore, heading towards open sea.

 

+

 

Years later, across the ocean, Nyna finds a bottle washed on the shore. Zeke trails behind her quietly, keeping an eye on her. He's been doing that lately, and he knows that she knows his real identity, but he doesn't talk about it, and neither does she. It’s sort of bittersweet, to spend time with his first love like this, but being around her makes him miss Tatiana a little less.

So he watches Nyna glide down to the shore, ignoring the way it reminds him of Tatiana, and when Nyna turns to face him there is a bottle in her hands.

“Message in a bottle,” she explains in that quiet way of hers, and Zeke’s heart stutters in his chest. “They've been washing on the shores for ages. I wonder who this one is supposed to be for…”

Zeke takes the bottle from her and uncorks it, taking out the paper trapped in there. He unfolds it and finds three words scrawled on it: _I miss you_. There are no names attached, but Zeke has seen that curly handwriting for years now, watched Tatiana write steadily so her letters would turn out perfectly. Usually she wrote long, rambling letters, taking up two pages front and back, but this one is short and concise, straight to the point. Zeke supposes that's what he is sometimes, but it still makes his heart hurt.

He pushes his mask up. “Doesn’t say,” he grunts, trying to keep his voice level. His fingers are tightening on the paper, making it crinkle, and Nyna stares at him. “It’s nothing.”

He folds the paper casually, like it doesn’t matter, but Nyna’s eyes are narrowed and she’s not a fool. She knows it belongs to him, but she won't bother him about it. She will not try to drag the answer out of his chest. Not with him.

“I'm sure it is," she agrees hesitantly, and then turns towards the sea. The moment she's not looking, Zeke drops the letter in his pocket.


End file.
